701–710 of 1001 posts
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So all the statistics are wrong?
To some degree yes, since they don't reflect unpaid overtime, much less de facto overtime (the boss is going out drinking until 1AM, so we're all going out drinking until 1 AM).
How much is missing from our own historical data? Things understood in the day, but not now, rendering stats less translateable.
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> as long as they know they are talking to a model Any evidence for this? It's obvious that a sufficiently advanced AI could solve loneliness if it was allowed to present as human, you just wouldn't know it isn't one. I'm entirely unconvinced that something which seems human in all respects couldn't replace one, even if your brain knows that it's actually AI.
A sufficiently advanced ai that tricks humans would be a human life itself…
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Can Japan even attract immigrants if it wants to? The language is notoriously hard to learn and it's not like they have super high paying jobs the way the USA does
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But in the end, the chickens always come home to roost. Dogs cannot support you in your old age; they cannot give you the pride of seeing a child go off to college; they cannot captivate you with conversations as they grow into full adults; and of course, they die far, far earlier than you. Similarly, the AI companions we create will be simulacra of the real thing. It's hard to say what exactly the differences will b…
And if your kid has downs or gets hit by a car or is an addict or a fuck up, they're not going to be able to support you into old age either. And then you're responsible for them as well, until you're too old and senile yourself, and then what? That's not to say don't have kids, but go into it with your eyes open, don't assume they're your lifeline to the future.
I wouldn't worry about AI solving loneliness any time soon. AI right now feels empty, like a facade with no depth. AI will tell you what it thinks you want to hear, but it can't remember a conversation you had last week (and even if it sticks a summary of your conversations into the pre-prompt, it has no sense of importance and will probably overwrite your darkest secret with your favorite cocktail recipe if it runs…
What you are saying is that AI is like a stuffed toy animal. Next week it is exactly like it is this week.
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Can Japan even attract immigrants if it wants to? The language is notoriously hard to learn and it's not like they have super high paying jobs the way the USA does
Yes. There are nearly 4M migrants in Japan today, up from 1M in 1990.
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Having some intrinsically negative experiences is good, arguably.
People who hold this belief unironically are ontologically evil.
But what I mean is more like the following. Human beings aren't just detached rational creatures. In fact, we are strange embodied minds for which "happiness," if it is to be sustained at all, requires a variety of stimuli arranged in an appropriate way. Some of that stimuli is unpleasant: being rejected by a partner, failing a test, not being fast enough to win a race, whatever. But separated from all negative feedback the systems which maintain us in something like emotional homeostasis often seem to break down.
There is nothing deep here and philosophers have talked about this one way or another forever: seeking only pleasure and avoiding all non-pleasurable stimuli ends up being bad for us. Of course, that means those unpleasant stimuli are not "intrinsically bad," since they appear to be good for us. Maybe a better way to say it would have been "intrinsically unpleasant."
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I think public discussion of whether you are having "enough" sex and "enough" babies to satisfy some oligarch or technocrat's vision of how the world should be, while not specifically deterring people going out, contributes to a general gross vibe which I could imagine doesn't help people want to get out there and mingle. But I do think this is overstated. I have a small number of children and the main reason that we…
The main discussion is on replacement rates. If this get too low, civilization eventually collapses. It's not really a 'vision' and more like the end of humanity.
Society has a lot of feedback systems in place which make a total collapse sort of unusual. A slow down of technological progress while society re-allocates labor towards other ends seems like a much more reasonable outcome.
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>Xerox PARC. Bell Labs. Academia. Wikipedia. You must have a rather narrow and useless definition of "progress". No i have a realistic definition of progress in capitalism. You must have a rather narrow brain and are unable to comprehend the difference between a realistic and practical application of "progress" versus an ideal that is unrealistic. Bell labs, Xerox PARC are done. These labs existed because capitalist…
> Where do Taxes come from? Business and profit. Funny you should say that: business and profit are actually way undertaxed in the US, compared to (for instance) salaries and pensions. But, you're still talking about the on-paper accounting (and choosing an arbitrary point in a cyclic economy as the "original source", but let's ignore that for now). Let's consider how progress actually occurs, on the ground. People l…
And all of this is primarily driven by business and desire for profit. It's less driven by charity or just hobbyiest interest. That is IN actuality how it occurs.
>Individuals cannot efficiently acquire all resources (respectively: accomplish all tasks, experience all experiences, etc) alone. Specialised tools and skillsets allow certain people to accomplish certain tasks more efficiently than others: we call this "expertise" and "economies of scale" and "virtuoso", among other names. Working together, people can accomplish more than they can apart: we call this "collaboration" when it is direct, and "trade" when it is indirect. To make trade (locally) more efficient in large groups, we abstract large trade networks by valuing more-or-less everything along one axis, which we call "currency", or "money". Money represents resources, because it can be exchanged for goods and services. (Therefore, money is fungible.) Money also represents debt, for much the same reason. (Therefore, money is not fungible.) What money represents depends quite a lot on your metaphysics, because it is an abstract concept.
This is just pedantism. At the basic level money represents status and power. It is a materialistic concept at it's core. While there are other ways to look at it primarily what I'm saying is that status and power is what drives people more than anything else. You can get into the bs hand wavy metaphysics of it, sure, any ass hole can do that. We're talking about the core common sense colloquilal nature of what it means to do it for money rather then altruism. OF course altruism can involve money too right? But it would be a rather deceptive move to shift the conversation in that direction to make things even more muddled.
Tired of your pedantic bs. You know what I mean I know what you mean and you're just trying to defend yourself. Why can't people be rational and just admit their wrong. You're wrong. EOS.
The idea that AI is going to "solve" loneliness is so insane. Even the framing of the idea is insane, in my opinion. Loneliness is not really about having someone to exchange words with, fundamentally. It is about being validated by other human beings or entities. At a most fundamental level the AI doesn't have a choice except to appear to validate you and this lack of freedom, the fact that you do not win over the A…
I basically agree that there’s something… I dunno, implausible about solving loneliness in a general sense using LLMs. But, wrt your specific description—these LLM based tools are just programs, and they can be easily configured to validate and flatter, or challenge and be obstinate. Surely they could be configured to have a satisfying relationship arc, if some work was put into it. I’m sure we could program a begrud…
As long as an AI is constructed as a tool for a specific end under the control of people it cannot meet the real social needs of humans.